WEAC President Ron Martin says public education opened doors of opportunity in his life

August 11, 2016

In remarks at the WEAC Summer Leadership Academy this week, new WEAC President Ron Martin, who grew up in poverty in northern Wisconsin, credits public education for opening doors of opportunity in his life.

“When I think of my roots growing up in Minong – technically Frog Creek Wisconsin – I would not have guessed somebody from my background or history would be able to call himself an officer, let alone the president, of the state’s largest union and the largest organization representing educators in the state of Wisconsin. What deserves all the credit for that? Public education. So it’s just fitting that I can represent so many educators all across the state because of what it was able to do for me and my siblings and my family.”

Martin went on to describe the challenges and opportunities ahead for WEAC and laid out three main goals for the organization:

How do we raise the profession? How do we lift the voices of educators so that we bring back the kind of respect that is important to us and important to the community?

How do we integrate and connect our Education Support Professionals more into the world of WEAC? How can we better get ESP and teachers to work together in public education?

How do we build strong locals?

“If we don’t have strong locals, we will not have strong regions. If we don’t have strong regions we will not have a strong WEAC,” Martin said. “That is what will give us the power we need to restore some of our voice and encourage individuals to want to be an educator down the road.”